Home Growing is essential to achieving Food Security and the aim of the UK becoming Self-Sufficient in Food Production

Young children are now suffering health problems that just decades ago were likely only to be experienced by a much older and very unlucky few. Obesity not only affects a significant part of the population, but it is also being championed as if it is normal, and we are vilified for daring to speak openly about such a point of view.

Like the rise in so many different health related conditions that are seriously compromising far too many people’s quality of life, the biggest proportion of all of them would be no more than an afterthought, if we were to bring back healthy eating and balanced diets in the form of basic and essential foods.

Sadly, the belief that cheap, sweet, salty, easy to buy, quick to eat ‘food’ is healthy for us is a well-crafted and massively convincing lie. We have had this nonsense repackaged by advertisers and the media in the same way that we are being told that if everyone were to consume healthy, basic and unprocessed foods, it would be more expensive than it is for us to eat it as the apparently luxury we have been conditioned to believe that it has now become.

We have been encouraged to eat the way that we eat and to feed our families the way that we do, not because it will benefit any of us. But because the foods, drinks and treats that we have become addicted to make somebody somewhere VERY rich.

What many of us don’t even realise that all of these ‘wonderful’ foods – and even the takeaways that have become a staple diet for some rather than just being an irregular treat – will have travelled many miles and been constructed artificially using ingredients that themselves may have been made in many different factories. They have traveled across continents before the end product you recognise has even been made.

It’s all part of the con called globalisation. A lie we are told we must celebrate and embrace as the legitimised truth. Because globalisation is all about international trade – which is how wars are stopped and how good relationships between different countries are made.

What the Establishment salesmen never talked about, and their pet media ignored, was the reality that jobs and communities have been lost, as well as the livelihoods that went with them.

Stupidly, we never really questioned the whole process because we were taught to become obsessed with speed of delivery, availability and what we still believe to be the lowest cost.

The reprogramming of our buying habits has contributed to or given the excuse necessary for almost all hope of this Country being Self-Sustainable in Essential Food Production being destroyed.

Meanwhile, the equally destructive EU policies that were supposed to be good for our economy within a so-called single market, also represented an advanced politicised form of the globalisation franchise. EU doctrine on food production has progressively made UK Farms all but impossible to run.

Globalisation was good whilst it lasted. Or rather, that’s what the majority of us are still expected to believe.

However, because of many different reasons that only include government responses to Covid, to Brexit, The War in Ukraine and the idiocy of Free Markets and Neoliberalism in the way that everything has been run, the supply chains that crisscross the world are now collapsing.

Forced change and possible shortages too, are only a matter of time.

As part of the so-called Great Reset or Agenda 2030, the solution to this coming problem that the elites created themselves isn’t to go back to basics and focus on localised supply chains. Indeed, whilst they actively ignore the crisis within UK Farming and in other countries where their counterparts are actively taking steps to see highly productive farms destroyed, they are instead telling us that we will all be happy eating ground up crickets and foods that have been made in a lab.

There is no good or humane reason for People to be treated this way, other than it being part of a strategy or plan to ensure that those who hold power over us now, remove our ability to support ourselves in the future.

As the crisis the Elites have created takes deeper and deeper hold, the agenda they are pursuing will ensure they will have and be able to maintain their grip on power, and we will all be dependent to a dystopian system where these few have absolute control. Unless we use the opportunity, their stupidity and greed has created, to take our own power back.

As part of The Grassroots Revolution and the rejection of everything held dear by the leaders of this dying ‘old world’, we MUST embrace a return to the most localised forms of food production and supply chains.

Food production must focus on healthy, basic and essential food items, using the absolute minimum of additional ingredients, so that our basic diets are home-produced, and this system of production is prioritised over everything else, so that the food we need, will always be available to us all in the cheapest and most accessible form.

Regrettably, because UK Agriculture has been deliberately pointed in the wrong direction for a very long time, younger generations of farmers have no working experience of anything like a truly localised food growing-to-production-to-retail system in anything like the way it historically was and will be needed now.

This means that the process of change will take time and that for reasons outside of our control, certain foods may become short.

It is therefore essential that everyone who is able use gardens, allotments, window boxes and whatever form of growing space available to ‘grow your own’. So that there will be sufficient basic and healthy essential foods available, whilst we all get behind our Farmers and develop the resources and cooperatives that will be necessary in every area.

We must do this to ensure that we have Food Security for the UK and achieve the National Self Sufficiency that we would have long since had, if politicians had been doing their job, and the greed and self-interest of the few, hadn’t been allowed to flourish and lead instead.

I have covered the subject of Basic Foods and Home Growing in detail within Levelling Level, the first book in the series leading to The Grassroots Manifesto. To read Levelling Level online or Download a FREE PDF copy, please Click HERE.

Levelling Level discusses the wider issues that we now face, how we got here and begins focusing on many of the things that we and our communities have the power to do.

In Part 3 of The Grassroots Manifesto, a series of Public Policies have been suggested for a new people-centric age. This is one of a number that relate specifically to this issue:

The Grassroots Manifesto | Policy 4 | Food Production, Security & Supply | Home Growing | xviii

Self-sufficiency of people is essential to achieving the aim of the UK becoming self-sufficient in food production and providing the Community with Food Security.

Surviving The Great Reset | Grow Your Own | Get Some Seeds & Seedlings

If you’ve ever heard someone you think of being a nerd, going on about saving or storing seeds, this is probably the moment when you will begin to make some sense of why.

Pretty much every vegetable, fruit or cereal that we eat can only be grown because someone has had the good sense to harvest, store and then distribute their seeds.

You will need seeds to grow whatever vegetables or fruits that you might choose.

Seeds are available online and even in some supermarkets, depending on the time of year. I picked up number of sachets a few days ago in Sainsburys (That’s well-known chain of supermarkets in the UK) and you are likely to find them near the flowers or any gardening things.

Again, its worth having a read up to check what you will be able to grow. Very little that you can grow in the garden will provide a crop year-round, if at all. So the next question will be what, where and how you can grow (or store) so you have something available year-round.

If you are lucky – and especially so at this time of year (spring/early summer), you might happen across seedlings that are vegetable or fruit plants already beginning to grow, on sale by the side of the road, at a garden centre or even in the plants section at your local supermarket. Grab a few if you can, as this is a great way to get a head start – and encourage yourself to get the growing bug – which can be very rewarding once you do!

Afterword – 23 September 2026

Thank you for visiting this piece, which was first published in May 2022 as part of my later book From Here to There Through Now.

With Grow Your Own and the wider question of Food Security becoming ever more important, my work since has led to the publication of a broad range of articles, books, and resources exploring these subjects.

If you have a moment, you will find links to some of those works that are currently available to read on this site below.

Thank you for your interest and support.

Further Reading

If you’ve reached this point and are thinking more seriously about growing your own, food security, or how we can all prepare better for the changes already underway, the following pieces will help you take the next steps. They build on the ideas first explored in this article and expand into what we can grow, how we can plan, and how communities can work together to make sure everyone has access to the food they need.

These resources are listed in the most helpful order – starting with the basics, moving through what’s possible locally, and ending with wider planning and the full portfolio of work available.

Grow Your Own or Home Growing

A practical and encouraging look at why home growing matters and how anyone can get started. If you’re new to all this or just need a nudge to begin, this is the best place to start.

🔗 https://adamtugwell.blog/2025/07/31/grow-your-own-or-home-growing/

Foods We Can Farm, Catch, Harvest and Grow Locally in and Around the UK

Once you’ve got the basics, the next question is what you can realistically grow or source locally. This guide explores the full range of foods that can be produced in and around the UK – essential reading for anyone planning ahead.

🔗 https://adamtugwell.blog/2025/07/18/foods-we-can-farm-catch-harvest-and-grow-locally-in-and-around-the-uk/

Foods We Can Trust: A Blueprint for Food Security and Community Resilience in the UK

This piece takes the conversation further, exploring how communities can build trustworthy, resilient food systems that work for everyone. It’s a blueprint for what secure, localised food networks can look like.

🔗 https://adamtugwell.blog/2025/12/15/foods-we-can-trust-a-blueprint-for-food-security-and-community-resilience-in-the-uk-online-text/

Local Planning for Food Shortages: A Guide to Local Support and Preparedness

A practical guide for individuals, groups and communities who want to be ready for food shortages. It covers local planning, support networks and the steps anyone can take to prepare meaningfully.

🔗 https://adamtugwell.blog/2026/04/28/local-planning-for-food-shortages-a-guide-to-local-support-and-preparedness-full-text/

Adam’s Food and Farming Portfolio: A Guide to Books, Blogs and Solutions

For readers who want to explore the wider body of work on food, farming, resilience and community solutions, this portfolio brings everything together in one place.

🔗 https://adamtugwell.blog/2025/12/18/adams-food-and-farming-portfolio-a-guide-to-books-blogs-and-solutions/